Clambake

Now that more than a year has passed since my dad died, in many ways I understand my grief less than ever. I remember once, as a very little boy, watching my dad comfort a friend of his who had just lost his father. The friend asked him when it would get easier and my dad put his hand on his friend's shoulder and said, "Never." I am beginning to understand what he meant, but to fully accept it feels impossible.

Maya thinks that if she grieves "correctly" she will be able to save herself and her family from the thorniest aspects of loss. But it turns out grief cannot be contained or controlled. It works its way through a family in the same mysterious way that it works its way through the human body. Maya has to learn to lay back and let it wash over her.

This film looks at the way that grief manifests in a family, the way that it both unites and separates. It examines the untidy movement of absence. The film is a comedy: it highlights the pettiness, the clumsiness, the sheer absurdity that attend grief. Shot on the very beach where I scattered my father's ashes, the film is a love letter to a place and to the people we've lost.